On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear a case that basically asks whether fourth amendment requirements apply to social workers who wish to interview children about being possible victims of sexual abuse.
If the lower court ruling (made by the 9th Circuit) is upheld, the case, Greene v. Camreta, will set a significant precedent regarding the rights of children and the conditions under which they may be questioned when sexual abuse is suspected. Thus it has attracted an unusually high number of amicus briefs, supporting one side or the other—each side claiming that they are protecting the safety of children.
The majority of the amicus briefs, however, were on the side of protecting children from search and seizure.
Here are the bare bones of Greene v. Camreta as laid out by Education Week last fall when the Supremes first agreed to hear the case:
The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to take up a case involving the questioning of an elementary school student at school by a deputy sheriff and a state child-protective services caseworker about possible sexual abuse at home.
The justices accepted appeals from the two Oregon investigators of a federal appeals court ruling that they violated the student’s Fourth Amendment rights to be free of unreasonable search and seizure when they interviewed her at school without a warrant, court order, parental consent, or exigent circumstances.
The case has implications for school searches of students and cooperation between school officials and law-enforcement authorities, although claims against the school district in this case were dismissed at an early stage.
The case involves events in February 2003 when the caseworker and deputy sheriff went to an elementary school (unidentified in court papers) to interview a nine-year-old girl whom they suspected might be a victim of sexual abuse by her father, who had been arrested a week before in the alleged abuse of a seven-year-old boy.
According to court papers, the investigators arrived at the school and explained they were there to interview the student and asked for a private room. A school counselor pulled the student, identified as S.G., from class. The investigators talked to her for some two hours. Later, the caseworker pursued the investigation and the father was indicted on sexual-abuse charges involving S.G., although the charges were later dismissed. (The father did plead guilty to charges stemming from the abuse of the seven-year-old boy.)
The girl’s mother sued the caseworker and deputy sheriff over the interview that took place at school, as well as over later state actions in which her children were removed from her custody temporarily. The suit also named the Bend-La Pine school district in Oregon and the school counselor as defendants, but those claims were dismissed by a federal district court and were not challenged on appeal.
Yet, in reading the 9th Circuit’s decision, you get a much better idea of why this is an emotion-fraught and complicated case. For instance, in the two hours that the caseworker spent interviewing the girl (who is referred to as S.G., ) according to the girl’s own statements made much later, he would not accept her original answers and kept pressing her to repeatedly say something else that would implicate her father, until finally, exhausted and scared, she said whatever the interviewer wanted, according to S.G.
The interview so disturbed S.G. that she repeatedly threw up when she got home.
Also, the girl was subject to an unusually invasive and traumatic medical examination, including having her genitals photographed—without her mother or anyone else she knew present to comfort her.
Although no real evidence of the purported abuse was ever found, S.G and her sister were removed from their parent’s home and placed in foster care for three weeks.
(The girls were eventually returned to their family.)
SCOTUSBLOG has a good legal rundown of what to expect.
Richard Wexler over at the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform has the the children’s advocate’s perspective: He writes:
Had S.G. herself been suspected of committing a crime, the caseworker and the deputy sheriff could not have conducted this interrogation without a warrant,” Wexler said. “Surely it is not too much to ask that, under the Constitution of the United States an innocent child receive the same measure of protection as a suspected criminal.”
Although those opposing Fourth Amendment protection for children have concocted a variety of scare scenarios, none of them holds up to scrutiny.
The 9th Circuit decision does not ban caseworkers or sheriff’s deputies from schools. Nor does it bar them from questioning children without parental consent. It requires only that they obtain a court order before doing so, something that can be done in a matter of hours. And in cases where that really would pose a risk to the child, they don’t even have to do that.
This will be an important case to watch.
AND IN OTHER SCOTUS BIZ, THE SUPREMES RULE THAT JURY CAN HEAR DYING MAN’S WORDS
Adam Liptak explains the ruling in Tuesday’s New York Times.
The case is tricky because those who opposed the ruling said it threatens to wreak havoc with the Confrontation Clause.
Just read it.
ALSO, KEVIN RODERICK SOUNDS OFF ON MEASURE L AND LIBRARIES
Roderick comes down on the side of libraries—and explains why. Listen to his podcast and then make sure you vote for Measure L.